There was once a market that opened only after sunset.
Its stalls were not stocked with grain nor with cloth,
but with warmth, laughter, and the promise of comfort.
People came with empty arms,
and bartered not with coins,
but with fragments of themselves.
A touch here, a kiss there,
an hour of closeness
for the price of tomorrow's silence.
The initial trade appeared lucrative—
hearts raced, bodies burned,
and the buyers were complete for a time.
But when morning returned,
what they carried home
were nothing but embers in their grasp.
Still, they returned the next night, and the next,
believing the stall on the farther road
would sell something different.
Yet every stall was the same:
comfort rented, never kept.
The old ones whispered,
"It is a strange bargain:
to give away so much
with a fire that fades before dawn.
For what man has ever bought tomorrow
with the coin of tonight?"
Why I Wrote This Poem
I have penned The Market of Warm Nights because I behold how many strive after pleasure in sex as if it were lasting wealth, when often it is borrowed flame. It may console one momentarily, yes, but it hardly ever satisfies the great longing. I wanted to show how people trade the most intimate parts of themselves, yet often leave emptier than they came— because not all warmth lasts until morning